I am a lapsed
American. After living in New York City for 25 years, I left in search of
other climes and ended up in France, where I have been for 20 years now. As
a lapsed American, however, I have not lost track of what happens in my
native country, nor have I totally shed my Americanism.

As a European, by
choice, I watch with great interest as the European Union makes increasing
headway toward a unity that may, one day, resemble the United States. But as
an American by birth, I still retain certain ideals that are considered to
be specific to the "New World".

Jeremy Rifkin's
The European Dream therefore struck a chord with me. This book,
according to its blurb, is an analysis of "a new European Dream [that is]
beginning to capture the attention and imagination of the world." To read
the book's jacket is akin to reading a tourist brochure for some new "land
of the future" exhibit at a World's Fair. "Europe has become a giant
laboratory for rethinking humanity's future," and "the European Dream
focuses more on sustainable development, quality of life, and the nurturing
of community."

Really? This is all
very interesting, for, after 20 years living in Europe, I hadn't heard of
any "European dream". Of course, I have not, as Rifkin has, "advised heads
of state and political parties, consulted with Europe's leading
companies..." I'm just an average guy, living among other average people.

And you know what? A
lot of what Rifkin says about France (I can't judge his statements about
other countries) is just plain wrong.

Now, if you're like
me, and you read something in a book and you know it's wrong, you'll have
doubts about the veracity of the rest of the book. If it's just an isolated
item in the book, you'll let it go. But when you see it happen again and
again, you start to question whether the rest of the book is indeed valid.

Anyone can dish out
statistics as Rifkin does, with gusto, and comment on their deeper meaning.
But statistics depend on their sources, and, often, on the political agenda
of these sources. It really looks, at least from the village where I live,
that Rifkin got lots of dubious statistics, believed them, and ran with
them, basing his book not on real-life experience, but on a mass of rickety
numbers.

You see, Jeremy
Rifkin hobnobs with "heads of state", so he probably has no concept of how
the majority of people live. In addition, he certainly discussed the issues
he presents in this book with the politicos he knows, and they gave him
their spin. But since politicians in Europe are so out of touch with reality
(at least the French ones are), it's like the blind leading the blind. In
addition, it seems as though Rifkin is purposely digging out the statistics
that give credence to his concept that Europe is better than America (which
I'm not necessarily contesting) and ignoring those that show otherwise.

I'll give a few
examples; after all, this is serious criticism and needs to be supported.
One point he examines closely is France's 35-hour work week, pushed through
by the Socialist government in 1999. Rifkin claims that "most French
employers have been won over to the scheme," but neglects to mention that
this change is such a fiscal and social failure that the current government
is planning to overhaul the law, and that the main French employers' union,
the MEDEF, is strongly against it. While it is possible that this has
created 285,000 jobs, as Rifkin states, the vast majority of these jobs were
created in the public sector. In addition, this costs taxpayers more than
$10 billion dollars a year, since the state pays employers the difference
between what the 35-hour work week costs and what the previous 39-hour week
cost.

To continue from the
previous quote, Rifkin states that employers are "finding that fresh and
motivated workers can produce just as much output in seven hours a day as
less motivated and more tired workers can in eight hours." This is so
incorrect that it is truly lamentable. First, while the idea of a 35-hour
work week is certainly one to praise, hardly any workers have shifted from
an 8-hour day to a 7-hour day. Instead, they accumulate "journées de RTT
(réduction du temps de travail)", catching up every now and then with the
additional hours they are owed. This has the unfortunate effect of leading
workers to merely take these days as personal days, and has not, as Rifkin
says, "boosted consumer spending." In fact, one of the big failures of this
change, in my opinion, is to not have forced a 7-hour working day - this
would have given the French more leisure time every day, rather than an
additional day every now and then. For example, my brother-in-law, who is a
senior executive with a French telephone company, gets 9 weeks vacation
instead of the normal 5 to make up for this "RTT".

Rifkin goes on to
say that "Workers often start their weekends on Thursday and don't go back
to work until Tuesday." Huh? Where did he see that? Certainly not in
France... Perhaps in the European Commission in Brussels... But not in a
country where several books have recently been written decrying the
increased stress placed on workers because of the 35-hour work week, or
where a recent, best-selling non-fiction book lauded goofing off at work.

Regarding
unemployment: Rifkin makes valid statements about US unemployment,
suggesting that the real unemployment level is higher than what is
suggested, since "more than two million discouraged workers simply gave up
and dropped out of the workforce..." But he does not allow for the same
effect in Europe, assuming that unemployment figures are valid. France, with
nearly 10% unemployment, and this for a very long time, therefore does not
have higher unemployment than in the US. However, in 2003, the French
government changed the way they defined unemployment, and suddenly dropped
the figure by about 1% for similar reasons. French pundits often mention the
"unseen unemployed", those who have "given up". It's not only in the US that
this happens.

Not all is
incorrect. Rifkin is right to say that there are fewer homeless people in
Europe, but they are not non-existent. He is right to say that there are
fewer obese people, though this is on the rise. But he's wrong when he tries
to discount racism, and talks about better "assimilation" in Europe. Each
European country has its problems with racism from either recent immigrants
or those who came to the countries after decolonialization. France, in
particular, has a serious problem of racism, and in the last presidential
election in 2001, the racist Nation Front party's candidate come in second
in the first round of the presidential elections, defeating the Socialist
candidate. In the second round, Jacques Chirac easily won, but the National
Front candidate still obtained more than 18% of votes.

Another comment
Rifkin makes is that Americans are individualist and Europeans are
community-oriented. As I write this review, 300 truck drivers (out of
France's 450,000) are heading for Paris, hoping to block access to the city
in order to obtain, from the government, concessions to compensate for
rising diesel fuel costs. This is a common form of blackmail in France, and
shows little respect for the broader community. A few years ago, it was a
group of employees at a delocalized factory who dumped acid into a river;
before that, railroad workers who struck just as the French were leaving for
Christmas vacation... The list goes on. Now, it is possible that Europe does
not include France - and some Europeans would like it that way - but
Rifkin's generalizations all fall flat looking at such incidents.

Some of the above
comments may make it sound like I'm anti-European; not at all. I very much
like living in a country where almost everyone has health care, where
consumers are less greedy, where you can get real non-industrial food; and
where I don't need to work two jobs to pay for my child's college education.
I don't, however, appreciate a country where unemployment has been at or
above 10% for just about all of the 20 years I have been here; a country
where democracy is limited to voting for a handful of officials; and where
the elite continue to be elite. While the distribution of income is more
equitable than in the United States, the class limits - which Rifkin seems
to think have disappeared over time - still prevent the lower classes from
rising.

Rifkin is right
about a lot: he is right about the malaise in the United States, and the way
the American Dream has faded into the past. But he is mistaken that there is
any such thing as a European dream, in a land where people speak dozens of
different languages, where they disagree on many of the fundamental ideals
behind society, and where the everyday struggle to get by is often as
difficult as it is in the United States.